Xylaria species are generally saprophytic, soft rot ascomycetes that primarily grow on decaying hardwoods. During vegetative growth this fungus extends white, monomitic mycelium to capture nutritional resources. After external stimuli initiate fruiting, the outer mycelium surface differentiates and forms black-pigmented stromatic tissue. Ascocarps (fruiting bodies) then elongate and extend upwards as they mature.
Fully mature fruiting bodies in the wild can be 3-10 cm tall and up to 2.5 cm wide. These fungi have an extended fruiting cycle (3-4 months) consisting of an initial phase where diploid asexual conidia are produced on the outer fruit body surface and a later phase where perithecia eject haploid sexual ascospores. When in this younger stage, the asexual conidia-producing conidiophores are closely packed on the stroma surface.
Published US Patent Application 2014/0186,927 describes a process for the production of a chlamydospore rich slurry inoculum for use in inoculating a solid or liquid substrate, such as described in published US Patent Application 2008/0145,577. As is known in the prior art, a concentrated mass of asexual spores can be used as an effective inoculum. Chiamydospores generated within normal vegetative growth can be distributed and function as discrete points of inoculation. This is dependent upon the natural ability of the fungus to sporulate extensively in the mycelium. Such behavior is completely independent of hyphal differentiation towards fruiting body development.
Spore mass inoculation has also been suggested in Published US Patent Application 2005/0176583. The described method of spore production is reliant upon development of fully mature fruiting bodies on a solid substrate and submersing the fruiting bodies in water to capture the released sexual spores. The total process time from solid substrate inoculation to mature sporocarp harvest can take anywhere from 30-60 days. The inoculum produced through this process is completely composed of sexual spores without incorporating mycelium or fruit body tissue.